Kyrgyzstan recovers bodies from plane crash site

A police officer stands by the wreckage of a Turkish cargo plane at the crash site in the village of Dacha-Suu outside Bishkek on January 16, 2017. A Turkish cargo plane crashed into a village near Kyrgyzstan’s main airport Monday, killing at least 37 people and destroying houses after attempting to land in thick fog, authorities said. / AFP PHOTO / Vyacheslav OSELEDKO

Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday was observing a day of mourning as it recovered the bodies of the dozens of people killed when a Turkish cargo plane crashed into a village outside the capital a day ago.

Authorities in the Central Asian country have blamed pilot error for Monday’s crash of a cargo plane operated by ACT Airlines, a Turkish cargo carrier, as it was attempting to land in foggy conditions at the Manas airport in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.

Kyrgyzstan had announced that the country of six million would observe a day of mourning on Tuesday.

The bodies of 37 victims of the crash in the village of Dacha Suu had been identified at a local morgue by Tuesday, including those of three of the aircraft’s four pilots, Deputy Prime Minister Mukhammetkaly Abulgaziev said on state television.

Additional body fragments and the body of the fourth pilot were later found, authorities said, suggesting that the death toll could continue to rise.

The health ministry said in a statement that 13 people remained hospitalised with injuries sustained in the crash, which happened as the plane was travelling from Hong Kong to Istanbul via Bishkek.

One of the black boxes of the Boeing 747-400 was recovered from the crash site, the government said Monday without specifying how long it would take to decipher it.